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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
63 stories where obedience appears.
On pilgrimage in ‘Akká in 1909, Juliet Thompson stayed up late instead of resting as the Master had asked, and argued about whether the New York Assembly was united. The next morning ‘Abdu’l-Bahá looked deep into her eyes and took her hand in a clasp of love.
Bahá’u’lláh recounts how Muhammad, who had prayed toward Jerusalem, was commanded in the midst of the noontide prayer to turn toward the Ka‘bih, and how this change tested His companions.
In May 1940 the Guardian, Rúḥíyyih Khánum and her father tried to reach England from Italy. A British Consul who remembered ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stamped their passport, and after anxious days at St Malo they sailed for Southampton.
In this day, the gathering of a board for consultation is of great importance and a great necessity.
According to the teaching of the Prophets, disease and all other forms of calamity are due to disobedience to the Divine Commands.
The bearing on health of these commands relating to the simple life, hygiene, abstinence from alcohol and opium, etcetera, is too obvious to call for much comment, although their vital importance is apt to be greatly underestimated.
Bahá’u’lláh teaches that everyone endowed with the Station of Prophethood is given sufficient proofs of His Mission, is entitled to claim obedience from all men and has authority to abrogate, alter or add to the teachings of His predecessors.
Devotion to God involves implicit obedience to His revealed Commands even when the reason for these Commands is not understood.
Although advocating as the ideal condition a representative form of government, local, national and international, Bahá’u’lláh teaches that this is possible only when men have attained a sufficiently high degree of individual and social development.
According to the Bahá’í view, the problems of human life, individual and social, are so inconceivably complex that the ordinary human intellect is incapable of itself of solving them aright.
A Bábí who had taken up arms for revenge fled to Hamadán and was arrested. A writing of Bahá'u'lláh forbidding retaliation fell from his collar, and after reading it the governor let him go.
The youth Buzurg of Nayshábúr walks to 'Akká, is named Badí by Bahá'u'lláh, and carries His Tablet on foot to Násiri'd-Dín Sháh, giving his life rather than betray his fellow believers.
As a small Mohawk boy in Ontario, Jim Loft was waved to by 'Abdu'l-Bahá from a passing train. Years later, as a Bahá'í, he returned to his reserve at the Guardian's request to teach the Faith.
Shoghi Effendi's boyhood in the household of his grandfather 'Abdu'l-Bahá: his name, morning prayers and breakfast with the Master, the Tablet telling him to memorize and chant prayers, and the surname Rabbani.
In his last years at Karbilá, Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí sent Mullá Ḥusayn on a mission to Iṣfahán, described to his students the signs of the Promised One, and urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him.
When Shoghi Effendi, aged five, begged the Master to write something for him, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told him to memorize and chant the prayers of Bahá'u'lláh. The boy chanted them so loudly the whole neighbourhood heard.
In the prison of Chihríq, after months of grief for the martyrs of Shaykh Tabarsí, the Báb named His attendant Sayyáh, the Traveller, and sent him to visit their resting-place on His behalf. On the way back, in the depth of winter, Sayyáh came to Bahá'u'lláh's house in Tihrán.
In New York on 19 June 1912, while Juliet Thompson was painting His portrait, 'Abdu'l-Bahá opened His eyes and named Lua Getsinger the Herald of the Covenant, telling her to go forth and proclaim it.
When war broke out, Shoghi Effendi advised Marion Jack, a pioneer in Sofia, to return to Canada. She begged to stay at her post, and he changed his instructions and wired: "Advise remain Sofia love."
In 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá meant to take His grandson Shoghi Effendi, then fifteen, with Him to America. At Naples, doctors ordered the boy off the ship, and the Master asked him to obey, saying there was a wisdom in it.
In 1912 Lua Getsinger, asked by 'Abdu'l-Bahá to go to California, walked through poison ivy so that she could not travel. He sent her an apple and a pomegranate to cure her, and she went.
Juliet Thompson, a painter with debts and a mother to care for, offered the proceeds of photographs of her 1912 portrait of 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the House of Worship. The day before He sailed from New York, He told her to keep the money.
In Washington in 1912, while Juliet Thompson waited at Mrs Parsons' house, 'Abdu'l-Bahá told her that her heart, not her eloquence, was what taught, and promised that her tongue would be loosed.
Called in a vision to leave his high rank in India and walk to Chihríq, a dervish reached the imprisoned Báb, received the name Qahru'lláh, and was then sent home by the Báb, alone and on foot.
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned in London that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away. In January 1922 the Master's Will was read, naming him Guardian of the Cause of God.
Grace very much wanted to attend the Unity Feast at West Englewood, but Dr Krug wanted her to play golf with him. 'Abdu'l-Bahá told her she must always consider the Doctor, who later became a Bahá'í.
In New York in 1912, Lua Getsinger told Grace Robarts that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wished her to marry Harlan Ober, a man she scarcely knew. Grace obeyed, and the Master Himself performed their marriage.
Swiss-born winemaker John Bosch became a Bahá’í in 1905 and took “Justice” as his watchword. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote to him that the Book of Aqdas forbids both light and strong drinks, he thought it over and soon decided to retire.
Siyyid Káẓim gave his students clues about the Promised One and, near the end of his life, urged them to scatter far and wide in search of Him. Mullá Ḥusayn went, and found the Báb.
Shoghi Effendi was a student in England when 'Abdu'l-Bahá passed away. He hurried home to Haifa, and his grandfather's Will named him Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.
At the 1912 Lake Mohonk Peace Conference, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá sent Dr Zia Bagdadi overnight to New York for a Persian rug to give Albert Smiley, who received it with joy just as the Master was leaving.
Near the end of Louis Gregory’s pilgrimage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expressed the wish that he and Louisa Mathew, a white English pilgrim, should marry. They did, and their marriage endured many pressures as a symbol of the unity of the races.
In 1872, on her way to 'Akká, Munírih Khánum stayed in Shíráz and asked Khadíjih-Bagum, the wife of the Báb, about her marriage. She recalled her dreams, her life with the Báb, and the night Mullá Ḥusayn came.
Shoghi Effendi sent the American believer Keith Ransom-Kehler to Persia to plead for the freedom of the persecuted Bahá'ís there. The Sháh never received her, but she stirred the Persian community, and when she died in Iṣfáhán in 1933 the Guardian called her the first American martyr.
In November 1921 the Bahá'ís of Springfield, Massachusetts, cabled 'Abdu'l-Bahá for approval of a second race amity convention. He answered, "Approved; God confirms." The convention met on 5 and 6 December, a week after His passing.
About 1873, still a prisoner in 'Akká and living in the house of 'Údí Khammár, Bahá'u'lláh revealed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book, which sets out the laws and institutions of His Faith.
On her 1905 pilgrimage to 'Akká, Julia Grundy wrote down a talk of 'Abdu'l-Bahá on obedience, in which He likened the Covenant of God to a Lifeboat and an Ark of Salvation, and the believers to fishes in the sea.
When Agnes Parsons made her pilgrimage in 1920, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked her to arrange a convention in Washington for amity between the white and colored races. It met in May 1921, and Mountfort Mills read a message from the Master to it.
In Ṭihrán in 1844 Mullá Ḥusayn gave a student from Núr a scroll to hand to Bahá'u'lláh at dawn. Bahá'u'lláh read it aloud, declared that its words had the same regenerating power as the Qur'án, and sent Mullá Ḥusayn a gift of tea and sugar.
Siyyid Ḥusayn-i-Yazdí, the Báb's amanuensis, spent His last night with Him in the barracks of Tabríz and was told not to confess his faith, so that he could later tell what he alone knew. In 1852 he was martyred in Ṭihrán.
Shaykh Ṣádiq of Yazd, healed in Baghdád through words given by Bahá'u'lláh, stayed behind as bidden when the exiles left the city. After Bahá'u'lláh reached Mosul he could bear the separation no longer, ran after Him, and died on the open plain.
In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá'u'lláh confirmed the Báb's calendar of nineteen months and made Naw-Rúz the feast that closes the Fast. He later explained that it falls on the day the sun enters Aries.
At 'Abdu'l-Bahá's instruction, Agnes Parsons organized a convention for amity between the white and colored races, held in Washington in May 1921. There Mountfort Mills read the Master's message to the gathering.
Georgiana Dean had left California at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s request to care for the blind Mrs. Dealy. Homesick, she took her trouble to Him; He asked her to stay as long as needed, and within days she was free to return.
In New York in 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá held up the book of the Hidden Words and said that whoever does not live up to its words is not of Him.
'Abdu'l-Bahá told Harlan Ober he was to go to India, and a few days later told him to go to America instead. When Ober protested, the Master answered with a joke.
Kept in Paris at ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's wish, May Maxwell met Thomas Breakwell and gave him the Message. On the evening of the day he wrote his supplication to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a cablegram arrived for her: ‘You may leave Paris.’
In November 1921 Shoghi Effendi, a student at Oxford, learned from a cable in a London office that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had passed away; back in Haifa, the Master's Will told him he had been appointed Guardian.
Aḥmad of Yazd lived near Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád and later set out to reach Him in Adrianople. In Constantinople he received the Tablet of Aḥmad, and instead of going on, he returned to Persia to teach.
It is said in the holy verse: “There is no partner for Him Who is the Dayspring of Revelation136 in His Most Great Infallibility. He is, in truth, the exponent of ‘God doeth whatsoever He willeth’ in the kingdom of creation. Indeed the…
Everyone is eagerly awaiting His appearance, yet since their inner eyes are not directed towards Him sorrow must needs befall Him.
There is no paradise, in the estimation of the believers in the Divine Unity, more exalted than to obey God’s commandments, and there is no fire in the eyes of those who have known God and His signs …
O servant of God!
Thou hast written concerning organization. The divine teachings and the admonitions and exhortations of Bahá’u’lláh are manifestly evident.
O thou maid-servant of God! Thy writing was considered.
O thou plant of the Garden of the Love of God! Thy letter was received. Its content was of utmost grace and sweetness.
O thou seeker of Truth! I received the photograph of thy shining figure and I looked at it with thorough attention.
O thou spiritual son! Verily I have received thy lettter … and its contents were known. I supplicate God to open to thee a way and prepare for thee and guide thee in thy affair.
O ye real companions! Day and night Abdul-Baha is engaged in the remembrances of the friends, and time after time doth he associate with them and behold their blessed faces.
Leroy Ioas recalls the evening Shoghi Effendi shared news that a discouraged pioneer on a Pacific island, whom he had urged again and again to stay, now had two spiritual assemblies.
On pilgrimage to ‘Akká, Thomas Breakwell told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that the cotton mills where he held his post were run on child labour; the Master told him to cable his resignation, and he gladly obeyed.
When Thornton Chase, a member of Chicago's all-male House of Spirituality, asked 'Abdu'l-Bahá about the Temple, He told the three visiting men to consult Corinne True, to whom He had given complete instructions.
In a 1929 letter later published in The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, Shoghi Effendi answered doubts about the Bahá'í institutions, calling the administration an instrument and not a substitute for the Faith, and warning against separating it from the spiritual teachings.